1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information providing apparatus in which many unspecified people can arbitrarily use it to obtain various kinds of information with a fee or without a fee.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various kinds of information have been provided in electronic information mode in which they are recorded in a medium.
For example, a newspaper, a magazine, a novel, and the like are recorded in CD-ROMs or the like as electronic publications and are on sale. The same is applied to music, video (movie, video clip, etc.), game software, application software used in a personal computer, and the like, and various kinds of information (hereinafter, information recorded in a medium and provided will be referred to as "content" in the present specification) are provided with a fee or without a fee in an extremely wide range.
In the content which is provided in electronic form, there are content which a user keeps for a long period (music software, application software, etc.) and content which the user feels that long storage is unnecessary.
For example, when it is considered that a newspaper or a weekly magazine is provided in electronic form, if the user sees the information once, it often becomes unnecessary thereafter.
In other words, it is not realistic to sell a newspaper or a magazine, as a package medium, in a maintainable recording medium of a disk or card. For example, if the user sees the contents once, not only the information but also the medium itself becomes unnecessary, so that useless consumption of resources is caused.
On the other hand, with respect to the information which does not require long storage, it is also carried out for a user to search or download arbitrarily from his own terminal (personal computer, etc.) through communication such as the Internet. However, in this case, in order to see the contents of the information, the user must be in a place (home, office, etc.) where the terminal is set. For example, in the case where the user desires to see the contents of the information at an arbitrary place through a portable disk reproducing apparatus or the like, it is necessary to further download the information from the terminal to a disk medium or the like.
Besides, in order to obtain content such as an electrical newspaper through communication, it is naturally necessary for the user to have the terminal connected to a communication network.
From the above circumstances, it has been required to realize such that a general user can easily obtain a medium on which are recorded content such as an electronic newspaper or magazine, and the user can confirm the content at an arbitrary place by using, for example, a portable reproducing apparatus or a home terminal, and further, waste of the medium itself does not occur.
Besides, when considering an apparatus in which a general user can obtain a medium which records content, it is also required that inventory control can be simply made.